The 2013 Wadi’a Maswadah Hoax

Summary

Wadi’a Maswadah, 5, the focus of a global sympathy campaign based on lies and distortions.

On July 12, 2013 major elements of the Western and Arabic “news” media engaged in a campaign to elicit sympathy for a 5-year-old Palestinian boy, Wadi’a Maswadah, whom they claimed was “arrested” or “illegally detained” by the Israeli military. The situation was greatly aggravated by selectively-recorded and -edited videos, produced by an anti-Israel “human rights” group, that depict the boy erupting in a crying tantrum amidst heavily armed Israeli soldiers.

In reality, the boy was caught throwing rocks at passing Jewish cars, the Israeli soldiers stopped him, brought him to his home, waited for his father, then delivered them to the Palestinian Authority police.

What these “news” entities and “human rights” group did not present, however, is the names and stories of any of the Jews who have been maimed and killed as a result of Palestinian rock-throwing — including 3-year-old Adele Biton, who was left with traumatic brain injury just four months earlier.

The press release by the anti-Israel “human rights” group B’Tselem, that served as the basis of the hoax

The debunking of the Wadi’a Maswadah hoax

IDF soldiers in the divided West Bank city of Hebron this week detained a 5-year-old boy for throwing stones at Jewish motorists and later handcuffed and blindfolded his father. Videos of the incident, filmed by several activists working with the human rights group B’Tselem, were uploaded to Youtube and quickly went viral, sparking online criticism of the army’s conduct.

B’Tselem called the event a “grave incident” and a violation of Israeli and international law, asserting that “Detaining a child below the age of criminal responsibility, especially one so young, has no legal justification.”

The IDF spokesperson’s office disputed B’Tselem’s accusations, telling The Times of Israel that “the child was not arrested and no charges were filed.” The spokesperson’s office also later said it would investigate the incident, Channel 2 reported, and accused B’Tselem of “biased” editing of the video footage. […]